Tag Archives: antidepressants

That is the question. I would have killed myself last night, except if I attempt suicide again, I need to be 100% sure I won’t wake up in the hospital again and that is tough to ensure with the methods available to me on an impulse.

I talked to my mom about whether or not to quit law school. Before the conversation I was fine, during and after the conversation I was suicidal. I was not suicidal because of law school. This has never been about law school. In the end, it is about me. The urges began when Mom admitted something to me… She is frustrated and she has been frustrated for years because she is sick and tired of the crises I manufacture for myself and my enumerated character flaws. She said she was sick of me all four years of undergrad and she almost didn’t want me to go to graduate school because I’m too emotionally weak. She is tired of mental illness and seeing me shoot myself in the foot. The facts don’t bother me. I know I am weak. I know I forge the shackles that hobble me with my own mind. I know the only thing holding me back is me. I know I have plenty of character flaws. I know I sabotage my own success. Her words hurt because she is the main reason I abjure suicide. I stay because I know what my suicide would do to her. There are other reasons like the rest of my family and friends and a lingering fear of hell. However, I believe everyone else would get over it with time. I am afraid of hell for suicide or for any of the innumerable ways I fall short as a human being, but sometimes I think I deserve hell. Furthermore, a large chunk of me thinks there is no hell or God wouldn’t damn me specifically for suicide. My mom is the only person I am certain would not recover from my suicide. Everyone else would move on.

So, when she said she was frustrated and sick of me and my problems…My first thought was that I could easily remove the source of her anger. The past two times I did not write suicide notes. This time I would. In essence, I’m doing it for them, for everyone. There maybe sadness and anger, but there won’t be any more fear, worry, frustration, disappointment, sadness, or anger. That will be the end of my story. She won’t have to worry about whether I’m eating or sleeping or going to class. She can do whatever she wants because she won’t have to worry about me being alone when I’m struggling. If I finish what I started 11 years ago, everyone else will have a better life with me gone. All I do is cause hurt and chaos. Ah hell, GOD started it 23 years ago. Everyone knows I shouldn’t have survived. I contribute nothing positive, or at least not nearly enough positive things to outweigh all the negatives.

My existence only causes heartache. Could I change that? Theoretically, but as my mom said last night, what makes me think I will change? I can say I’ll do better all I want, but so far, I just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Therefore, I have no logical reason to believe I will be a better person in the future. I always say I’ll do better, I’ll be better, and I’ll try harder. But I am never enough and I never will be. There is no point in prolonging their suffering.

Ironically, I don’t want to die.

Yet, I am an unwelcome burden on the people I love and I cannot abide by that. I say unwelcome because while I would feel guilty if I had ALS and my family members cared for me as my health declined, I would not be suicidal if they wanted me around, while I could still draw breath.

But no one does, not really. Sure people would say flowery words, claiming they miss me, but actions speak louder than words. As I said, I admit there would be initial grief and I regret that, but everyone (except perhaps Mom) has their own, separate, vibrant, full life. Taking me out of the equation will not hinder them in the long run. They don’t need me now; so, postmortem platitudes are just that…Empty words. They’ll go back to school, work, family, loved ones, and heal. As I live, all I do is compound the pain. If I die, it would hurt them for a while, but that would be the end of their burden.

I would need to somehow assuage guilt. That is the toughest part. I am capable of killing myself (provided I am uninterrupted) for sure. The worst possible outcome would be interruption and brain damage. I can make sure I am uninterrupted though. Teenage me didn’t think about the interruption part. I expected I’d fall asleep and no one would notice until it was too late. Apparently, I stayed conscious and obviously drugged. No more mistakes. I am certain grief will heal and they’ll experience less pain overall. I have no dependents to worry about. The afterlife will be whatever it is… The only remaining problem is I know suicide makes people feel guilty and guilt can be tougher to overcome than grief. It can tear people apart and I don’t want that.

I know everything in my life, including my death, should I chose it, is my fault and if they could see it rationally they would understand they couldn’t make a difference. However, I of all people, know emotions are not rational. The only way to solve the problem is writing very thorough notes or deciding the risk of guilt is less than the continued pain caused by my presence.

Speaking of my presence, I said I didn’t want to die, but I can’t just disappear to remove my influence because then they will always wonder what happened to me. I imagine that gnawing hole would be worse than my annoyance. A dead body puts that question to rest.

This is all awful because I don’t actually want to die. As much as my loved ones try to understand, they blame me for my shortcomings.

Last night I paraphrased the above GIF saying, “Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you think I do this on purpose? Do you think I want to make the same mistakes over and over again? Do you think I want to be miserable?!?” She sort of understood what I was saying, but correctly dismissed it. They rightfully blame me. After all, I do make excuses. As my Mom said last night, my failures aren’t from some magical mental illness I can’t control; I let myself be weak and I dodge blame saying I can’t help it. That isn’t true. I can help it, but I won’t. There is something wrong with me because I don’t have the willpower to do things for myself. I’m motivated by pleasing others. I will go through hell for other people, but getting out of bed in the morning for my own gratification feels impossible. I am capable of it, but unless someone else has the expectation that I get out of bed and they’ll know if I don’t get out of bed, and I care about them, I will stay in bed all day.

I tried to tell her that while technically I made choices, which led to outcomes I disliked, and technically I have the ability to make different choices, things are not so black and white.

Why would anyone chose this? They would not!! At the same time… she is right. The simple truth is: I am too weak. I could / would / should do a lot…but I’m too weak emotionally.

It feels like internal chaos. In reality, I hold the reigns; I can do better. I am simply not strong enough.

She said there is no point in doing the bare minimum again and barely passing. It is a waste of time, effort, anguish, and money. That is so true. Nonetheless, part of me holds out hope that I can finish the semester and give new classes a chance. She is correct. I’m foolish. As always, I’m telling myself what I want to hear, but doing nothing to create change.

*breathes deeply* I cried while typing this, big surprise… *sigh* For now I’m trying to persevere.

But then I think… I’m just kidding myself. I am nothing. I am no one. I am a moment in eternity. I am a red dwarf in a sky full of blazing suns. I could better myself, but I don’t have the energy, the willpower. At least if I died in the next 24 hours, my mom would get 70% of this semester’s tuition back.

I can’t withdraw because that admits defeat and stagnation. Also, as I already said, as boring as I find the material, this all comes down to me and nothing about my circumstances. Plus, quitting dooms me to a lifetime of worrying other people. So, I stay and pass or I kill myself. Doing it sooner rather than later means my family gets some money. So, am I reducing the value of my life to about $9,500? I guess so. That seems callous, but I believe it is worth less than that.

*laughs bitterly* Now I am frustrated! I still don’t want to die. There are places I want to see and things I want to experience, but they come at the cost of other people’s happiness. I feel sad; my heart is heavy.

I won’t kill myself, unless on impulse because some small part of me knows even though I can’t fathom it at the moment, my suicide would hurt the people I care about more than I can imagine.

Here is to spending the next 2 hours reading for a class I think I may have already failed because I missed too much class. I may have miscalculated the number of allowed absences because I forgot to take the credit hour change into account. Although my classes are all the same as last semester, their respective number of hours changed this semester and the maximum allowed absences is a function of how many hours a class is worth.